Crow Dreaming Site of Muyinga, 1984

synthetic polymer paint on canvas board

76 x 38 cm

Est. $3,500 – $4,500

Hammer $3,200

Provenance: Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. JK841251 Private Collection, Vic, acquired from the above Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd
Artwork story: Jack Kunti Kunti was born at Muyinga, a site to the west of Kintore Community just across the Western Australian border, and spent his early life with his family in the surrounding desert. Muyinga was not merely his birthplace but his Dreaming Country, and it is to that Country, and specifically to the Crow Dreaming that resides there, that he returns in this painting. Papunya Tula Artists records that Crow Dreaming Site of Muyinga maps the rockholes at the site through the concentric roundels distributed across the composition, while the vertical streams of colour describe the surrounding topography: the sandhills of the country in which the artist was born and which he knew intimately. On this long narrow board, nine concentric roundels in cool grey-white dot-work are distributed across three vertical channels, the outer two in near-charcoal and dark grey, the central channel in warm sandy buff, its tone the single point of warmth in an otherwise austere palette. The parallel undulating lines that fill each channel describe the sandhills with quiet precision. The roundels vary in scale, the largest anchoring the lower corners with a gravitational weight that draws the eye down into Country. It is a composition of great restraint, the landscape of Muyinga held in permanent record by a man born within it.

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Sale 3 · Lot 55

Jack Kunti Kunti

c.1930 – 1990

Region: Central Desert & Tanami
Community: Kintore (Walungurru)

Crow Dreaming Site of Muyinga, 1984

synthetic polymer paint on canvas board

76 x 38 cm

Est. $3,500 – $4,500

Hammer $3,200

Provenance: Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. JK841251 Private Collection, Vic, acquired from the above Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd
Artwork story: Jack Kunti Kunti was born at Muyinga, a site to the west of Kintore Community just across the Western Australian border, and spent his early life with his family in the surrounding desert. Muyinga was not merely his birthplace but his Dreaming Country, and it is to that Country, and specifically to the Crow Dreaming that resides there, that he returns in this painting. Papunya Tula Artists records that Crow Dreaming Site of Muyinga maps the rockholes at the site through the concentric roundels distributed across the composition, while the vertical streams of colour describe the surrounding topography: the sandhills of the country in which the artist was born and which he knew intimately. On this long narrow board, nine concentric roundels in cool grey-white dot-work are distributed across three vertical channels, the outer two in near-charcoal and dark grey, the central channel in warm sandy buff, its tone the single point of warmth in an otherwise austere palette. The parallel undulating lines that fill each channel describe the sandhills with quiet precision. The roundels vary in scale, the largest anchoring the lower corners with a gravitational weight that draws the eye down into Country. It is a composition of great restraint, the landscape of Muyinga held in permanent record by a man born within it.